


A Remedy for Nightmares

by Marasa



Series: Dream Eater [14]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Dreaming, Dreams, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Massaging, Nightmares, Referenced Childhood Abuse, Soft Boys, Stress, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:06:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marasa/pseuds/Marasa
Summary: “Sleep,” Tyler hums against the top of his head as he rubs comfortingly up and down his spine. “I'll be waiting for you there, just sleep.”“Tyler,” Josh sighs quietly.“Joshua,” Tyler answers back just as gentle.





	A Remedy for Nightmares

They’ve been talking for hours and they still don’t have a plan.

They’re still on Josh’s bed as they talk about all the information they have, mulling over any clue that might give the mysterious man’s identity away. 

Josh helps Tyler look through the texts he’s gotten from the supplier the past week, a man Tyler learns is named Brendon. It’s mostly full of swearing and gross insults of Josh’s stupidity. 

After reading through the harsh texts, Tyler is overwhelmed with hurt on Josh’s behalf. His eyes shimmer with a thin film of tears. A knot forms deep in his throat.

Josh doesn’t deserve to be treated like that. He's so amazing and sweet and loving. He doesn't deserve any of those hateful words.

“Ty-” Josh begins as he spots his trembling chin but the spirit is already leaning in and planting his lips against his cheeks, the corner of his mouth, his lips.

“You’re not stupid, you’re not,” Tyler whispers against his skin as presses kiss after kiss against his face.

Josh doesn’t make any sound of affirmation. Tyler sighs and presses his forehead against Josh's temple.

“I don’t like that guy,” Tyler grumbles.

Josh chuckles weakly. “Yeah, he’s not that great.”

The spirit suggests that maybe they tell the rest of the house so they can have more minds working out this riddle. Josh doesn’t like this idea, says he wants to wait and think through it for a little more time.

He’s sure they can figure this out on their own.

But they don’t have a name, a face, anything of the one who has fucked them over. All they know is that their drugs are gone because some man with a mask took them before they could even get there.

The pair names the unknown perpetrator, ‘Houdini.'

“Houdini...he...stole drugs?” the spirit asks.

“No, he was a magician,” Josh says. “He made things disappear. Or made them look like they disappeared. An illusionist.”

“Magician…” Tyler hums, trying to understand. “A liar.”

Josh nods distractedly. “Yeah, something like that.”

The couple stays up for hours that night talking intensely about it. They hold hands the entire time because they can’t risk not being apart from each other.

They need each other's support.

Josh yawns once the clock on his bedside table reads five am.

“We should probably sleep,” Tyler suggests with a thumb running back and forth over his knuckles. 

Josh shakes his head. “We have to figure out how we’re gonna fix this.”

“But we can’t do that if we’re exhausted.”

Josh looks away, makes no move to actually lay down. The spirit continues his path back and forth over his knuckles.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be able to sleep tonight,” Josh says pathetically.

He looks so exhausted after talking in circles for the past few hours. He yawns again and Tyler’s heart breaks.

“Take off your shirt and I’ll give you a massage."

“Tyler, you don’t have to do that-”

“I don’t mind,” Tyler says. “It’ll help you relax and I want to help you. It’s okay to ask for help, Josh.”

There’s a moment of silence as Josh looks at him, beaten and broken. He gives a careful nod.

Tyler kisses his knuckles before guiding him to take his shirt off and then ushers him to lay on his stomach on the bed.

Carefully, Tyler straddles Josh’s waist. The tips of his ears go hot, his heart races. He tries to keep focused.

Tyler drizzles oil down his spine to the waistband of his basketball shorts. He pulls Josh’s pants down half an inch more to reveal the beginning of his buttocks so he can really get the bottom of his spine. 

They're both blushing but welcome the new and intimate touch. 

The spirit’s hands slide across Josh’s shoulder blades and work at the tightness of his back. His skin is warm, soft, freckled faintly and in such a way that has Tyler looking down at his boyfriend in awe. 

The body under him begins to relax little by little with ministrations. Tyler smiles warmly and continues rubbing circles across the breathtaking beauty before him.

But the silence that falls upon them is deceiving.

It could be interpreted as comfortable but Tyler knows Josh well enough now to know that Josh is overthinking to an almost dangerous extent.

“You're thinking,” Tyler chides softly with a kiss against the side of his head.

“How can I not?” Josh grumbles after a brief pause.

Tyler pushes at a particularly tight knot on his shoulder and successfully rubs it loose. His palms slide down on either side of Josh’s spine to his lower back. 

Back and forth, back and forth; his pinkies slip discreetly under the waistband of Josh’s shorts and stroke, caressing, the soft skin of the top of his buttocks.

“Don't,” Tyler whispers. “Try your absolute best. Do not think. Feel. Feel me here with you.”

Josh shivers. His hands twitch by his head, curling atop the comforter.

“Can you feel me?” Tyler breathes against the tattoo behind his ear. There's a degree of sensuality to it but even more, there's a sense of closeness that is rooted deep in all things intimate and safe.

“Yes,” Josh answers, a little light-headed with the sudden bliss. “Yeah, baby, I can feel you.”

“Focus on me,” Tyler sighs against the side of his throat. “No more thinking.”

He knows what it looks like. They both do. But it's not like that. It could be, will be, but that's not what this is about. 

This is about comfort and soothing and healing hurt, all of which requires a gentle hand and not the recklessness of lust. 

They have time for that later. Right now, they need the softness of love.

Tyler nuzzles into the forest of green hair in front of him. He trails his nose from the back of Josh’s head down to the back of his neck.

He kisses tender and open-mouthed at the notches of his spine. 

Josh hums.

“Everything will be okay,” Tyler says between soft kisses like rose petals. 

“We only have a week.”

“An  _ entire _ week.” 

Josh sighs.

“Let’s sleep,” Tyler whispers with one last kiss against his shoulder. “We need to sleep.”

Josh’s fingers uncurl on the comforter. He doesn’t object the suggestion but doesn't look all that satisfied with it.

“Tyler, I don't know if I'm gonna dream tonight,” Josh says.

The spirit frowns at his downtrodden tone. 

“I already fed off of Michael last night, Josh. You don’t need to worry about that.”

Josh is silent and Tyler doesn’t like the implication of the wording used. He helps Josh sit up, his hands rubbing back and forth over his shoulders in a comforting gesture.

“Josh, you're more to me than a meal,” Tyler says when the other finally turns to him. “You don’t owe me anything. I don’t need to feed every time we sleep. You’re my boyfriend; I want to be close to you. I want to sleep with you.”

Josh’s eyes widen a little. His cheeks flush.

A pause, and then Tyler’s do too. 

Damn human slang.

“I- I mean-”

“I get it,” Josh says a little shyly.

They crawl into bed together. Josh is more quiet, naturally, as the stress weighing on him grows. 

Tyler is quiet too. He doesn't know what to say, what else to do. He's thinking too hard and trying to rationalize what would be best at this time that he's beginning to stress himself out and that's no good.

It’s five-thirty am when Josh finally turns off the bedside lamp.

In the darkness is a sense of separation. Tyler can almost feel the hurt that radiates from Josh, the self-doubt and self-loathing and the fear.

Tyler takes a deep breath, stops overthinking and settles on simply following the pure instinct to comfort his lover.

The spirit wraps his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders and pulls him gently to his chest, maneuvering him in such a way that he can rest his cheek against Josh’s forehead.

“Wh- What are-”

“I...want to hold you,” Tyler murmurs quietly, because even he's not entirely sure what he's doing, just knows it feels right. “Let me hold you…”

Josh is tense for a moment but Tyler is there murmuring soft words of reassurance that have Josh melting completely weightless in his arms. He settles closer to Tyler as he whimpers quietly, digging his nose against his pulse and huffing broken breaths against him.

“Beloved,” Tyler coos before he even knows what he's saying. “My love.”

Josh grunts and grabs two fistfuls of Tyler’s shirt in his hands. 

“Sleep,” Tyler hums against the top of his head as he rubs comfortingly up and down his spine. “I'll be waiting for you there, just sleep.”

“Tyler,” Josh sighs quietly.

“Joshua,” Tyler answers back just as gentle.

It goes quiet for a few minutes and as soon as Tyler hears the faint snores coming from his boyfriend, he slips his hands up to the back of his head, closes his eyes and wills himself deep, deep, deep into Josh’s dreams. 

Everything fades to black before an orange light fills his vision.

Tyler blinks as he gains his footing on the carpet under him. A lamp is lit on the table beside them. A narrow staircase is at the corner of the room. A long hallway is at the other.

It’s a room, maybe a living room or lounge, Tyler’s not sure.

He turns to see Josh standing shaky and on bent legs by the sofa. It’s taking him a little while to gather himself as he’s still blinking blearily and looking around in deep confusion.

“What is this place?” Tyler says. “Do you know this place?”

The intense detail gives it away. There are framed pictures and a distinctive pattern on the couch. In dreams, that’s only achievable with high familiarity. 

Tyler picks up one of the pill bottles on the table beside the sofa.

“‘ _ Ms. Davis _ …’” Tyler narrows his eyes.

He turns again to Josh to see him still trying to gain his bearings. He looks uncharacteristically confused and dizzy, almost half-asleep as he tries his best to wake himself up.

Dreamer’s Delirium, or that’s what it was coined by spirits of every kind. It was a sort of spacey, clumsy version of the dreamer’s subconscious, caused mostly by stress and extreme exhaustion. 

The spirit is a little worried.

Josh’s state right now wasn’t really a problem, only dangerous in the sense that a stumbling dreamer was the perfect prey for any spirit hungry at the moment, but more so, Tyler was worried about this place they find themselves in. 

It’s like he can sense the undercurrent of strangeness and alienation here. It makes him shiver and and want to get out of here as soon as possible.

Tyler sets the pills back down on the table.

“Hey, Josh,” he whispers quietly as he begins to make his way to him. “I'm right here, I’m with you.”

Just as Tyler extends his hand to hold Josh’s, the warm lights all around them flicker. A cold breeze wafts through the room. 

It feels like hopelessness, abuse.

“Wait, wait…” Tyler looks all around at the darkening of the area around them. Josh looks as terrified as Tyler is beginning to feel.

He whimpers and Tyler is turning back to his boyfriend hurriedly. “Josh, I'm here, you're okay, I'm here with you.”

The man barely acknowledges him. He gives a brief glance to Tyler but his gaze is focused on the beginning of the hallway ahead of them.

Every light shuts off.

The television turns on. Static cascades down the screen continuously.

It’s the only light they have to battle the deepest darkness they’ve ever experienced. The buzz of white is eerie as everything is bathed in shadow. 

It's dark, menacing. 

Tyler blinks, trying to focus, as he catches the faintest movement of something large at the end of the dark hallway.

“What’s down there?” Tyler whispers. “Josh, what’s down that hallway?”

Josh whimpers louder.

The primal instinct within Tyler as a spirit of dreams is to promptly leave this threatening environment before the approaching nightmare can make his soul sick.

But Josh is here beside him and he’s terrified and exhausted and there’s no way the spirit could take him with him. 

This was Josh’s dream. He was a prisoner to it.

“Please,” Josh pleads brokenly, asking for help and protection when his subconscious is so vulnerable. 

Tyler can’t affect dreams. He can’t change this. Or he doesn't think he can.

He did it once before when Josh was in distress, he remembers. Tyler had conjured up the perfect dream for him but he didn't even know how he had managed to do that.

It was luck. Pure luck and desperation.

The light on the television dims and blares again and again, and they can hear something breathing deeply down the hall and Tyler really wishes he had some luck right now.

“I don’t know if I can change this,” Tyler rambles as he looks around at the interior of the home for any help. “Josh, I don't know if I can do this.”

A large thump sounds down the hall.

They both stare wide-eyed as the sound of a female’s voice screeches out to them. 

“JOSHUA!”

Josh recoils in on himself with a broken yelp. He holds his face and sinks to the floor with distressed murmurs and whimpers falling from him.

The man’s heartbreaking reaction is all it takes for Tyler’s instinct to flee to be violently overridden. The spirit steps in front of his cowering boyfriend and ignores the still lingering desire to get out of here.

Tyler can’t identify who or what it is but he can see movement of something sliding down the hall toward them. 

“Don’t touch him.” Tyler stretches his arms out to his sides to shield his lover. It doesn’t matter that he’s scared; he’s going to protect Josh. “I won’t let you touch him.”

The shadow growls down the hall at the challenge. Josh whimpers. He sounds so hopeless.

“Joshua William Dun,” the nightmare approaching them yells, “how dare you disrespect your mother! How dare you go against my wishes for you! You're an embarrassment, a disappointment! You are no son of mine!”

Tyler grits his teeth in fury because not even in his dreams can Josh escape the constant feelings of inadequacy. Someone is always there to yell at him and call him stupid. 

“Do not speak to him,” Tyler orders as the growling gets closer.

“You will not touch him,” Tyler growls back in a surprisingly low octave that sounds vaguely underwater. “You will not speak to him, you will not touch him, you will leave us alone.” 

He can feel his fingers twitch and spark with the smoky, black energy that flows through him. 

The figure continues forward, set straight for Josh.

He's so sick of everyone beating up the man who has his heart, the most amazing human he's ever met. He's so sick of not being able to protect the man who has protected him time after time. He's so sick of feeling so powerless.

Tyler’s eyes glow red. It all boils over.

“Leave him alone!” Tyler screams louder than he thought himself capable.

The nightmarish figure finally erupts from hall with a roar that is as loud as Tyler’s. It's a mass of evil energy wearing the skull of a bull and screeching with the voice of who Tyler can only assume is Josh’s mother.

It’s an evil spirit of dreams that encapsulates all of the dreamer’s insecurities and uncertainties so they can feed off of their prey’s torment. The black fog that flows from its long cloak smells of anxiety and depressive thoughts and its fangs glisten with anguish.

Tyler has seen these spirits before but has never stayed around long enough to actually see them hunt. He doesn't have a choice now.

The spirit lunges at him, jumping into the air so it might fall on the both of them. It's jaw is open, it wants to consume.

Tyler grits his teeth and raises his hands as finally a wave of invisible energy shoots from his palms. 

The evil spirit flies backwards into the wall with a painful shriek of surprise. It explodes in a cloud of black that churns frantically faster and faster until the beginnings of red light begin to glimmer at the center of it.

Tyler turns his back and hunches down with his arms around Josh to better shield him as the whole room melts away immediately in a blinding blast of red light.

Behind plaster and floating floorboards of Josh’s childhood home, the beauty of space is overwhelming.

Moons rotate distantly, planets glow orange and green and red far away. The shimmer of stars around them is comforting and subdued, glittery but not blinding. 

They’re suddenly deep in outer space, already more breathtaking than any pictures of the galaxy back on Earth.

“I…” Tyler murmurs with wide eyes. “I did it…”

He successfully managed to unconsciously fashion the perfect dream of space for Josh knowing he would find as much comfort in it as he himself found in the dreams of forests. 

He doesn’t know for sure how he did it, but at least now he knows it’s repeatable, it’s doable.

He could learn.

They are weightless in space as Tyler holds his boyfriend to him so they do not float away from each other. 

He tucks his head against the side of Josh’s head, curling close and down to his ear so he can whisper words of comfort and apology for the constant emotional pain he must suffer as he comes down from the scariness of the situation previous.

Josh is still mildly out of it, blinking slowly as he finally looks from the side of Tyler’s neck and up at the breathtaking galaxy around them.

His eyes glisten with the pinpoint light of the stars, his lips part in awe. The energy he emits strays from terrified to calm. 

He looks back at the spirit.

“Thank you,” he murmurs with a slow tongue.

Tyler wishes he could take it all away from him, all the pain, the uncomfortable memories, the stress of a supplier all over his back for something he truly couldn’t control.

He can’t take it all away from Josh but he can take what he’s learned tonight and use it. Tyler now realizes that he’s capable of protecting Josh and himself, and that his ability to influence dreams was greater than initially thought.

It’s a start. It gives him an idea about how they might catch this guy- Houdini.

It’ll be hard, yeah, but he’s willing to do anything he has to for Josh.

“I’m here,” Tyler promises because he’ll always be there for him. The smile Josh gives challenges the beauty of the universe churning around them.

They share a gentle kiss that shines brighter than all the celestial bodies as they float through space.


End file.
